After storm, surfcasters might see a surge in stripers

The hard northwester that’s been blowing since the coastal storm passed by Wednesday has calmed the ocean, and could provide another period of hot striper fishing — particularly for surfcasters.

The last time we had that situation, there was a blitz of legal stripers at Island Beach State Park as well as at some other areas in Ocean County. That fishing dropped off, but Bob Matthews at Fisherman’s Den in Belmar Marina said there was some good surf action before the storm from Sandy Hook to Asbury Park for school bass up to 25 inches.

Those smaller bass had been largely missing as stripers in the teens dominated during the last blitz. Ironically, there was also a lack of large bass after the last northwester — with relatively few weighing in the 20s. Grumpy’s Tackle in Seaside Park records both length and weight on their weigh-ins, and out of dozens listed recently there weren’t any over 39 inches. Some larger bass may have been released, such as the 40½-incher I put back while fishing from John Green’s beach buggy at Lavallette, but it was surprising that there were no reports of at least one much larger bass during the last blitz.

Grumpy’s hasn’t had a weigh-in in three days, but they reported lots of sand eels and bunkers in the surf yesterday morning. Betty & Nick’s in Seaside Park had a report of a 20-pound bass being caught in the pocket at Island Beach State Park during the storm.

I made a very brief attempt at the Point Pleasant surf early yesterday morning, but the northwester had blown most of the water off the beach at low tide. There were some birds picking beyond the outer bar, but they were well out of range. Conditions should be much better for surfcasters today, and boaters will probably find plenty of bass to work on

A sturgeon of about 6 feet was the highlight of last Friday’s trip with Chuck Many of Annandale on his Tyman from Gateway Marina in Highlands along with Nellie Greer from Bethlehem, Pa., and Brad Knecht of Nazareth, Pa. Knecht cast a diamond jig among dipping birds off Sandy Hook when he hooked into something on his relatively light spinning outfit. Many soon realized that he’d snagged something big, but we never suspected it would turn out to be a sturgeon until it was alongside with the jig in a pectoral fin. Atlantic sturgeon don’t hit lures, but they are occasionally snagged. After unhooking that primitive fish, which is now completely protected, we took some photos before releasing her.

Though striper fishing wasn’t up to Tyman standards that day, we did release 59. Most were well below keeper size, though everything goes back on Tyman — and we could have limited if we weren’t releasing. Greer easily had the largest bass at 37½ inches. Shorts were the most abundant I’ve seen them so far this fall, especially on the New York side of Ambrose Channel early in the afternoon. There was no end to what we could have caught on 6-inch Tsunami Swim Eels if we hadn’t left them to try for a big bass in the channel and up the Hudson River.

Hans Kaspersetz, of Sheri Berri from Baker’s Marina on the Bay in Highlands, was billfishing in the Presidential Tournament in Guatemala last week as his Team Priority took second place, just 100 points behind the winners.

Boaters who spent lots of money on fuel this year running offshore trying to catch the one school bluefin tuna per boat allowed will be happy to hear that the National Marine Fisheries Service is increasing the daily allowance of large medium and giant bluefins for the commercial General category from three to five per day from Nov. 27 to Dec. 31 as fishing for those very valuable tuna has been so bad this year that the quota of 435.1 metric tons won’t otherwise be filled. That’s an interesting conservation theory for a species in such poor shape — increase commercial limits in a desperate attempt to kill as many spawning-age bluefins as possible. I suspect the average angler wouldn’t expect that would solve the problem.